NSA collecting all phone call data

[Roverron]

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...on-court-order

[Razorwire]

I wonder why it was just Verizon?

[ColMike]

I always believed in don't put anything in electrons that you don't want Uncle Sam to know. Now you can't even talk except face to face. No doubt they data mine all these forums.

[Razorwire]

I thought I read something the other day that they were doing something like that on the "net looking for references to Mus Lim / Mus Lims. They wanted to stop "Hate Speech".

[DrHenley]

Originally Posted by Razorwire

I wonder why it was just Verizon?

Verizon is just the one that was revealed in documents obtained by The Guardian The phone companies are under court order not to disclose anything about it. You can be sure they aren't the only ones.

[Riverpigusmc]

Muslim. Gun toting women hating camel ****ing subhumans.

Come get me
Bring guns

[Roverron]

There's also this..........

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.


The Silicon Valley operation works alongside a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up “metadata” — address packets, device signatures and the like — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s top-secret program summary, set down alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”
...
Even when the system works just as advertised, with no American singled out for targeting, the NSA routinely collects a great deal of American content. That is described as “incidental,” and it is inherent in contact chaining, one of the basic tools of the trade. To collect on a suspected spy or foreign terrorist means, at minimum, that everyone in the suspect’s inbox or outbox is swept in. Intelligence analysts are typically taught to chain through contacts two “hops” out from their target, which increases “incidental collection” exponentially. The same math explains the aphorism, from the John Guare play, that no one is more than “six degrees of separation” from Kevin Bacon.
...
The technology companies, which participate knowingly in PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
...
Formally, in exchange for immunity from lawsuits, companies like Yahoo and AOL are obliged accept a “directive” from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to open their servers to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit, which handles liaison to U.S. companies from the NSA. In 2008, Congress gave the Justice Department authority to for a secret order from the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court to compel a reluctant company “to comply.”
...
According to a separate “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection,” that service can be monitored for audio when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of “audio, video, chat, and file transfers” when Skype users connect by computer alone. Google’s offerings include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/invest...y.html?hpid=z1

[Sheepdog]

Seems like allot of haystack to sift through. Whatever happened to probable cause?

[deputybpfife]

Very scary, and the Supreme Court just held up the decision to allow this to continue.

[ronpaul50]

If you think it's just Verizon I got some nice beachfront property in Arizona I want to sell you.